


set me free.

by holdingnotoyou



Category: BLURRYFACE - Twenty One Pilots (Album), Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Based on The Judge, Blurryface Era, Gen, Italics, Ocean, POV Second Person, Religion, Religious Conflict, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, heavy usage of the color black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 05:03:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17380103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdingnotoyou/pseuds/holdingnotoyou
Summary: Your judgement day is coming, and you'll find it in the form of the surface of the sea as the sun sets.





	set me free.

**Author's Note:**

> two vent fics in a row? someone must be _suffering_.

The sea is black and freezing and you vaguely think, _this must be what it's like to live in the center of my heart_.

The clouds are deep and gray in the center of the sky, and you wonder, briefly, if you reached out to them, if you could just wrap your fingers around the substance like cotton candy. It would dissipate in your palms, albeit they're icy to the touch, the water compromised within them bleeding down onto your wrists and mixing in with the black of your blood that litters your skin. 

God must hate you, must've casted you out to the sea in order to seek some type of vengeance on the soul that you've corrupted. You were supposed to be an Angel, and now you're potentially moments away from washing up on the shore of the Devil, a friendly-welcoming face you wouldn't mind seeing again; the gates of hell will open up and welcome you in, will greet your pity-poor soul and tell you about how they've been awaiting your arrival. _You're one of us_ , they'll grin their signature grins with jarring teeth and eyes like _yours_ —red and piercing, bright enough to leave a hole in the center of your chest. It'll ache like someone's branded you, just as it always aches.

You always ache.

Your jaw doesn't work or you'd ask _why me?_  God has to be listening to you, right? Peering over you and watching you suffer in the center of the ocean. You think now, _maybe it's just my blood_ —it wouldn't be the first time you've woken up in a pool of your blood, and you always think that you've lost enough that it'll finally kill you but the relief of taking your own life never comes. There are no wind-chimes in the center of the sea but you can hear a tinkling, your ears ringing as you float and float and never find the shore. It's probably your fault for never looking up, figuring your body doesn't have the strength to do so. You never actually try. You don't want to be disappointed when you realize you can move. It feels like lead in the center of your chest; you wonder how you don't just sink and drown and _die_ right here, the center of your blue-black ocean of demise. 

 _Is my mom worried?_ You ask yourself, _Are those who follow worried?_ Your skin is numb to the sensation of the cool water, or maybe it's just numb to the fact of life. Your life, the one that is sad and soft and soaked in this treacherous pain that feels inescapable. You've triedm a million and a half times to escape but your relief never comes. Maybe it's because you're so used to being trapped behind your four walls, the black ones that always seem to be caving in on you and your work and your humanity—do you even have humanity at this point or are you a shell? Are you surviving to live or just surviving because someone said you had to?

You should've stayed home. You always should stay home. That's what they warn you, that _surviving relies on you existing within the safe confines of your bedroom_. You didn't want to _survive_ , not anymore, you wanted to live.

You should've stayed home, not headed out as the sun was setting below the horizon and littering the sky in hues of purple and blue and deep yellow and maybe the beauty should've kept you alive—maybe _you_ should've kept you alive—but you let your feet carry you to the edge. A black coat whips around you, brushes your kneecaps as you let yourself succumb. _One step_ , you remember telling yourself, _and it'll all be over_. 

You had taken it. One step. It turned into the air catching your coat and your hands grasping for the air, for the rocks, for _anything_ as your mind finally catches up, finally panics; it isn't long before your feet are kissed by jagged rocks, before your body sinks beneath the iced water, and it should hit you like a shock but—

You're at peace here. You're at home. 

The sea isn't black until you hit it, and it reminds you that everything turns black when you touch it; that's why the walls in your home are, that's why your throat is covered in the sticky, blood-like substance— _my blood_ , you remind yourself. You see it every time you cut open your wrists or your thighs or any inch of your skin that you can hide from your mother—that's why you don't leave. You should've stayed home. You're at home, remember? Soaking and shaking like a dog caught in the rain, this is your home—your rebirth brought onto yourself, your survival without trying to survive.

Hitting shallow water should be satisfaction, it should overwhelm you with great relief but instead, it twists in you like a knife. You find yourself brushing up against the shallow sand, shoulders finding the black sand and mending with the material of your coat. You blink, once, twice, and rise to your knees. Water drains from your coat, from your skin, drips off the black of your wrists and follows the curve of your neck as it rushes back to the surface of the sea. Back to its home. Now you must go back to yours. 

The sky is dark, sun long set, as you drag yourself across the shore—the set of makeshift stairs finds you tripping over your own two feet, cursing the government for not taking better care of their resources. You make it home, though; a long twenty minutes of avoiding wide-eyed stares and hushed whispers. People are always curious about you when you make yourself known in public. You're always like this, soaking wet and covered in your own sticky-black blood. It makes you the talk of the town. You wish the ocean would just take you already. 

The coat is shed within seconds as you enter your home, placed lovingly on the rack just inside the door and you don't bother stripping yourself from your clothes before you settle into the black sheets of your bed. The lightbulb above your bed flickers for a few long moments before it finally dies. You'll have to go south into town tomorrow to buy a replacement, or you'll have to seek out a friend who would be able to do it for you. It'll be easier to just get it yourself, though. You friends pity you, much more than strangers on the street do. It's easier to avoid them. To avoid anyone is the dream. 

For now, though, you sleep. A deep black sleep in which you don't dream of anything but kneeling at the altar of your God, asking for forgiveness in the shape of leaving your own skin and finding solace in the existence of being non-existent. _Call me home,_ you'll beg and beg and _beg_ , and you won't get the satisfaction you're seeking. Instead, you'll shiver and shake and watch the face that you can't quite make out twist into grief as it can't give you what you want. 

 _Go back_ , it'll say. _One more time, and you'll come home_.

It's always one more time. One more sleep. It's been that way for months. 

 _Go back, and you'll come home_. 

You go south to the store when you wake up, coat still wet against your skin as it brushes your kneecaps and you don't make eye contact as you purchase the black box harboring a lightbulb. Your neighbor will have to install it, giving you a bright grin that meets his brown eyes as he laughs and brushes a hand through his red hair— _you'll turn it black, won't you?_ He's much smarter than he gives himself credit for. 

You don't touch him as he leaves, just smile the faux tight smile you've perfected over the years and let the door remain open as you settle yourself against the black wall of your bedroom. The chords feel right beneath your fingers, the strings and the fretboard are as black as the tips of your fingers. Your one safe haven that exists aside from the ocean, and everyone will hear your sorrowful cry for help. No one will come to your rescue. 

Your judgement day is coming, and you'll find it in the form of the surface of the sea as the sun sets. You always do. 

**Author's Note:**

> [tyler's coat](http://kochorrito.tumblr.com/post/162393279372/twenty-one-pilots-hangout-festival).
> 
> reach me on [tumblr](http://clancies.tumblr.com).


End file.
